Purpose: To test the effects of short-term exposure of aquatic organisms to electric field (EF) with negligible magnetic component.
Materials and methods: We built a plate capacitor that served as a source of EF of strengths that can be found in nature near transmission lines. We exposed two cultured protist species Euglena viridis and Paramecium caudatum to EFs for 24?hours and monitored their abundance, morphology, intracellular superoxide anion (by dihydroethidium [DHE]), hydrogen peroxide by (H2DCF) and lipid peroxidation (MDA) contents, catalase (CAT) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity.
Results: We found that even short-term exposure to low strength EF causes changes in population abundance, morphology and oxidative stress response in both species. As the EF strength increased, abundance of both species decreased. However, at weaker EFs, fission rates were seemingly promoted. We noted a decrease in size in both organisms in directions perpendicular to their fission planes correlated with EF strength. DHE and H2DCF fluorescence intensity and SOD activity were higher in organisms exposed to the stronger EFs.
Conclusions: We suggest that the electric component of the field, rather than the magnetic, is the main cause of all the noted effects. As a result, aquatic organisms should be given greater importance in studies assessing the effects of EMFs in spite of the attenuating effects of water to EF strengths. 相似文献
Human beings and ecosystems are being possibly exposed to CNTs, as there is a rise in global production rate of carbon nanotubes (CNTs). This may affect the health of humans and increases the environmental risk. We have already reported the pulmonary toxicity due to the inhalation of MWCNTs. We claim that a compound with anti-inflammatory and antioxidant activity may ameliorate the CNT-induced toxic effect. With this view, we have investigated the ameliorative effect of intravenously-administered nano bis-demethoxy curcumin analog (NBDMCA) against MWCNTs-induced inhalation toxicity by examining the lung histopathology for inflammatory cell dynamics, pulmonary remodeling and estimating the inflammatory biomarkers in the broncho-alveolar lavage fluid. We observed that NBDMCA could ameliorate the injury as evidenced by the decline in the levels of markers of inflammation, cell damage, and the histopathological changes induced by MWCNTs. We conclude that NBDMCA may be used to reduce the risk of MWCNTs-induced inhalation toxicity. 相似文献